In many different systems, fluids are transported through conduits to serve various purposes. One such type of system is a thermal system, where the fluid can be a coolant and/or a refrigerant than is circulated to transfer thermal energy between two or more parts of the system. In an electric vehicle, the thermal system generally services an energy storage (e.g., a lithium-ion battery pack), a traction motor, other powertrain components, and a cabin environment system. The thermal system also included components to cool the fluid, i.e., radiators or chillers, and/or components to heat the fluid, i.e., heaters.
In some operations of this thermal system, all components require cooling, in other operations of this system, all components require heating, and in still other operations of this thermal system some components require heating while other components require cooling. Thus, in prior system designs, multiple differing fluid paths were used to service the heating and cooling needs of these components. Because of the complexity of routing of the fluid to service components requiring heating, to service components requiring cooling, to heat the fluid, and/or to cool the fluid, the prior thermal system designs often included many differing valves and routing paths for the fluid, which was expensive, complex, and had a high rate of failure.